Most of the planning I do with my clients involves planning for contingencies – if your first choice of health care agent can’t serve, who do you want to help you? If a person named in your will predeceases you, where do you want their share to go? We want the documents to be flexible enough to handle these issues.
We can’t plan for every contingency though. Agents will move away, relationships will change, children who seemed irresponsible or unable to handle money can turn their life around, and other children can run into difficulties that make inheriting money outright almost dangerous.
For big changes, you need to change your estate planning documents. Most of the documents you sign will be able to be amended or revoked so that new ones can be prepared. Your lawyer will make sure of this before making any changes.
The key thing to keep in mind about whether a change in circumstance requires a change in your plan is to ask yourself “if I became incapacitated or passed away today, would I be ok with the plan as it is.” If you can say “Yes, my sister Mary moved away and it’s not convenient for her to serve as my agent under my durable power of attorney, but, my friend Sam is named as alternate and he’ll do a fine job” then you probably don’t need to make a change. But if the thought of the guardian you currently have listed to care for your children in your absence sends chills down your spine, call your attorney!
Remember your documents are written on paper, not in stone, and in most cases can be changed and adjusted as your life changes. But you need to take the first step to see your attorney to make the change, and not just stick a post-it note on them and hope to get around to it someday. Last I checked, those post-its aren’t legally binding.
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